I've been pretty surprised as I've gone through my new house at what I've found... Sure I expected the worst based on the home inspection and my gut feeling, but there are things I just wasn't really ready for...
The first of these was the fire damage in the old section of the house... Based on some of the newspaper I found stuffed around the window as insulation, I'm guessing the fire was in the early '40's... At the very least, I know it was before the late 50's which is the date on the papers I found in the walls of the addition... (hey, don't be so shocked, newspapers were an accepted form of insulation for a long time, and as it turns out, it really helps tell the story of old houses...) Structurally, the charred lumber is fine. It's burned about an 1/8" to a 1/4" in the bad areas, which means when you scrape the burned portion off, the boards are down to what we normally use in construction today, except the lumber species is probably higher quality than what we get today.
The one that shocked me today (almost literally) was when I got up in the ceiling over the bathroom to sort out the electrical, I found that not only had all the wire splicing been done without a box, which is scary enough, but sadly normal enough as well, but the exhaust fan had been wired in with SPEAKER CORD... Yea, that super thin wire with the clear insulation that is supposed to be used for running low voltage to your speakers... Naturally, I have left the exhaust fan out of the electrical mix at the moment due to that, and the fact it just vents to the crawlspace/attic, which is going away in the interest of some additional ceiling height. (I'm tired of walking in to the lights on the bottom of all the ceiling fans, I swear the people that had it before must have been midgets)
I assumed that had to be the worst... I couldn't conceive of something more blatantly wrong that I'd find... Right on schedule, Murphy's Law came around and kicked me in the ass when I pulled the sheetrock down from next to the front door... The outdoor light next to the front door was run on thermostat wire. Now, most people don't know what that is, so let me explain a bit... Typical thermostat wire is either two or 4 wires in a single jacket. When you strip the jacket off, and look at the individual wires (which are all still insulated), one wire is about as thick as the edge of a CD. Strip off the insulation on that one wire and it'll be about as thick as a small paper clip wire... Let me spell this out... N O T G O O D!!! So naturally I currently have no front light at the house either... I'm going to have everything put back together, correctly, and safely by the end of March, when I move in... Granted, I'll have only renovated the bedroom, and living room completely, but the electrical in those, plus the bathroom, and parts of the kitchen, and dining room will be done so I won't burn the place down by turning on a light.... I'll also have all new plumbing throughout, and most of the electrical done in the 3 rooms in the basement, plus fresh paint on the basement walls and floor. The kitchen, bathroom, and all the rooms in the basement are slated for renovation, but they will have to wait a bit as I'm quickly running out of cash on hand... I should be able to get to the bath by the summer, and then the kitchen some time next year if all goes well... The basement rooms will get done a bit at a time as they are more just labor, and some construction materials that I can pull from shows...
Lets see... I bought this place why?....